Monday, February 14, 2011

It Takes A Turn

Ebay was the answer. It promised it would get rid of the clutter. It promised our stuff would not go to waste. It promised great fortune. These high hopes have been dashed rather quickly. I temporarily forgot that most of the world is made up of idiots. And so, instead of good times and cheer, I've found that most people have a spelling problem and don't understand math.

My ads say, NO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING. So someone from Denmark bought one of the Garfield figurines. I sent a message stating that I won't ship to Denmark. They replied that I should not send it to Holland and I should use an address in Arizona. Is my geography really bad? Perhaps I lost the part of history where Denmark and Holland became a superpower of one country. Seriously, am I wrong? Are they two different countries?

In any case, they went on to say that they needed my email address to pay me through PayPal because they had an international address and couldn't use that for PayPal. Aside from the fact that their reasoning for needing my email makes no sense, I didn't understand why they couldn't use the Arizona address, and told them so. I don't know what they did, but I did wind up getting the money in my account.

They also send along a message to repeat: Please send this to the Arizona address and not to Germany. Now, I have been to Germany, and unless I am really clueless as are the customs agents who stamped my passport, Germany is NOT Holland and Germany is NOT Denmark. At that point, it didn't matter, so I shipped it to Arizona and they never left feedback but they also didn't complain so I didn't leave feedback and have tried to forget about it. I figured, out of all the things I'm selling, at least one looney toon will pop up.

But then, another one emerged as the winner. I sold a few textbooks I didn't need. Never used them. They had the answers pre-printed in them. I stated in the ad: Some exercises contain the answers pre-printed by the author/publisher/editor. It said it right there in the ads.

These were books for writing better. Perhaps the person who bought them should have been looking for books about reading comprehension as well because this is the following exchange that ensued after the person paid for the books and received them:

Disgruntled Customer:
hello....i received annotated edition for both books...and you dint mention in your listing that your books are this edition not student. i bought these books for someone else and they are definitely not happy with this...can you please refund half of their money which will be 12$ to compensate for this?? if you refund 12$ they are willing to keep the books. Please refund asap...

Me:
Hi,
Thank you for your message. I don't quite understand your reasoning for the partial refund. Why would someone want the books for cheaper? Either they are useable or they are not useable. The ad lists that the answers for exercises are filled in by the publisher. The only difference between an instructor edition and a student edition is that the answers are already filled in, as the ad states.

Please explain and help me understand exactly why the books are useable after a partial refund, and I will gladly work with you to get you that money back.

Awaiting your response so we can rectify the situation,

Disgruntled Customer:
the reason for this is that this edition is not intended for sale in USA, its prohibited coz these books are send for other purposes only. Now they were being nice about the situation since you already mailed them out and classes have already started so to save you cost of return shipping and all the hassles they did agreed to keep them but again you should always mention clearly in your listing that book is ANNOTATED INSTRUCTORS EDITION..i hope this explain your concern if not let me know I will explain in more detail. second thng if i opened case with ebay regarding this they will refund me full money and they might put hold on your account for doing this so choice is yours, I was just trying to work this out for all of us. let me know.

**Note that this does not really explain why a book with answers in it is useable at half the cost.

Me:

Hi again,

Thank you for your response. I asked you to explain more clearly, and now I do understand the complaint. Please don't threaten me with opening a case as I have worked out several situations being a buyer and a seller without opening cases. Now that I understand why you are asking for a refund, which was my only issue, I can offer you the one you ask for. I had thought that my description made it clear that they were annotated as annotated means having notes in them and they do. Thank you for your advice in listing them as such more clearly. I am an honest seller, and had I known I was not supposed to sell those books, I would not have. They were given to me and I have no use for them, hence selling them on ebay.

I can refund you the partial amount you requested via PayPal. To be clear, this refund covers both books that you purchased for this other person who is using them. If I am incorrect in that, please alert me immediately.

I will wait until tomorrow to put the refund through in case I am misreading your message. If I do not receive a message from you stating otherwise, I will put the refund through then.

Thank you for your quick reply. I'm looking forward to resolving your issue within the next day.

And now for what I wanted to write:

Hi,
Perhaps you should look into getting the books back from whomever you gave them to and use them yourself because you obviously do not have a strong grasp on the English language. You should also search for some books about logic and reasoning, and maybe even a book on common sense, because your reasoning for being able to use the books only if you get a refund makes NO FUCKING SENSE. Also, a reading comprehension text would work wonders for you since you totally missed the fact that the answers were already in the book even though the ad states that the answers are already in the book.

I did not write that though. I couldn't. And this is why I'm not in retail.

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